OnThe Struggle for the United Nations:"When the worlds population begins to think of itself first as earth-dwellers rather than as Zambians or Americans, the UN will appear as a natural and necessary entity. It will be only a step then to begin considering its authority as fully legitimate, even though the organization continues to operate through nation states. [Spring 1998]

On the myth of elitism in the Foreign Service, in Three Cold War Diplomats: "In my experience, [most Foreign Service personnel] came from all around the United States, from all sorts of colleges and universities (and occasionally without a college degree), and from families from all walks of American life." [Inaugural Issue 1997]

More Life in the Foreign Service in this issue:

 Charles G. Stefan, in a personal view of Kissinger and CSCE Negotiations: In early 1974, the fate of the well-known Russian dissident, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, was a behind-the-scenes concern to the Western delegations at the CSCE. Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoli Kovalev, the head of the Soviet delegation reportedly played an important role in the resolution of the situation then facing us at that time. This situation lasted until Solzhenitsyn was expelled to the West instead of being incarcerated in the U.S.S.R. According to Kovalevs own account many years later, he was instrumental in the Kremlins decision in the case. Kovalev reportedly argued then that a decision to jail Solzhenitsyn would mark the end of the Helsinki process. [click here]

 Patricia Linderman, in Moral Hazards, Foreign Service fiction set in Cuba: "The sea stretches out, luminous and blue, to the northern horizon. I lean, like a Cuban, against the rough, crumbling seawall of the Malecón. Decrepit apartment buildings, eaten away by years of salt air and neglect, line the curving waterfront. Soviet-style housing blocks sport balconies with flaking blue paint. The modern U.S. Interests Section building stands out like a clean-cut American cop in mirrored glasses. [click here]

The author served in the American embassy in Ottawa and as Canadian desk officer in the Department of State, 1947-1951. Ambassador Dale retired after thirty years in the Foreign Service in 1975.- Ed.

AT AN INFORMAL RECEPTIONgiven by my boss, the American minister, in the spring of 1948 in Ottawa, I met the Canadian undersecretary for external affairs, Lester Pearson. To my surprise and pleasure he went out of his way to chat with that lowest form of diplomatic life, a third secretary and vice consul (my rank at the time). His affability and kindness naturally endeared him to me and I followed his career with more than professional interest

Born in 1897 the son of a prominent, well-to-do Methodist minister, if that identification is not an oxymoron, Mike, as he was always called, lived through tremendous historical changes brought on by the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the decline of the British Empire, the rise of the the United States, and the Cold War. On these matters his views adjusted to events, but his love of sports never varied. All three Pearson boys played excellent hockey, football, tennis, lacrosse, and, like their father, baseball. These sports became a lifelong part of what Mike Pearson was.

An eager student, encouraged by fine teachers, young Pearson developed an early interest in English constitutional history. .Among prosperous Anglo-Canadians of the pre-World War I period, attachment to the British crown formed an indispensable part of being Canadian, so Mike's intellectual instincts at the Hamilton Collegiate Institute typified those of this period and social group.

He went on to the University of Toronto, but World War I soon beckoned to him and he joined the University Hospital unit, which had the advantage, in his view, of transferring him abroad almost immediately, in his case, in 1915. After service in Thrace, he returned to England. On the ship he demonstrated unusual initiative by bribing the ships barber to permit him to spend the nights in the padded comfort of a barbers chair. In England, Pearson switched to the air force, but his career as a pilot and as a military man ceased abruptly and ingloriously when he was hit by a bus as he was hurrying back to base from unauthorized leave

After returning to University long enough to graduate, Pearson moved to Chicago to work in the selling end of a distant relative's fertilizer business, but he found business was not attractive to him. As he wrote at the time, I will never be satisfied in making material success my whole aim, not that I don't like money and comfort. So, in l921 he entered Oxford as a graduate student in history. His interests then began to veer toward international relations as he envisioned an enlightened British Empire cooperating with the League of Nations in service to humanity. He married Maryon, a serious young lady, in 1925 and began teaching British history and coaching football and hockey at the University of Toronto. Although Mike did not have the makings of a distinguished scholar, his charm, wit, and informal manner made him a favorite among the students.

Finding that teaching was not his dish either, Mike took the Civil Service exams in 1928 and became a secretary in the Canadian Foreign Service. His co-workers described him as vigorous, cheerful, always smiling, and keenly interested in his work. At last he had found his niche. When in 1930 he joined the Canadian delegation to the Naval Limitation Conference in Geneva, the local headline read,Popular football coach goes as secretary to Canadian delegation.

As the League of Nations proved unable to handle the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s, Pearson lost much of his early enthusiasm for the League. Then, Prime Minister Bennett, impressed by the young diplomat's reputation for hard work and ability, seconded him to serve as secretary on two royal commissions dealing with price spreads and grain futures. He worked from nine in the morning till midnight seven days a week, managing to produce the final reports in excellent shape and on time. The prime minister appreciated his contribution so much that he awarded Pearson the Order of the British Empire. He discovered he had won the honor as he was playing tennis at the country club when his assistant threw it to him with the words, Here's your O.B.E.

From then on, Mike was marked for increasing responsibility. He moved to London in the early 1930s as second in charge of the mission and served as Canadian representative on the League of Nations Committee of 18 to make recommendations regarding Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. He loved living in England, but, as a Canadian, he feared his country would get into war on England's behalf when Canada's own interests were only peripherally involved. Regarding Canada's tie with England, Pearson remarked that it was an affair of the heart, always dangerous, sometimes infuriating, yet at bottom inescapable.

As the principal reporting officer at Canada House, Mike was largely responsible for the way in which the Canadian government saw events in Europe. The Munich Agreement appalled Mike and persuaded him Hitlers next move would mean a major war. Thus, he saw war coming and he wanted Canada in it. When it came, he worked and played even harder. One day on the golf course, his caddy cautioned him to slice even more than usual. There was an unexploded bomb in the center of the fareway. A reporter wrote that Mike's energy and cheerfulness were the mainstay of the Canadian mission during a time of greatly expanded workload and physical danger.

After enduring the Battle of Britain in London, Pearson returned to Ottawa in 1941 as undersecretary for external affairs. But the next year he moved again, this time to Washington as second in charge of the Embassy. In 1945, he became ambassador. The newly appointed ambassador enjoyed his Washington assignment, but found himself trying to counter two contradictory pressures. One was an American tendency toward unilateralism or isolationism and the other, an inclination to take Canada for granted. He pledged the Americans total Canadian cooperation in bringing about an allied victory, but without sacrifice of Canada's identity.

Even Washington in wartime had its lighter moments. One day the State Department received a formal communication from the Canadian ambassador stating I have been requested by their Excellencies, the various Canadian officials now serving in the penal settlement of Washington, to throw at the State Department a challenge to a test of strength or skill on what, I believe, is known as a baseball diamond. The game ended as a rather hazy draw with a huge score.

Pearson came to appreciate the openness and flexibility of American officials in spite of doubts about that nations isolationist tendencies. He also worked extremely hard to make the UN as strong as possible in order to enmesh the two superpowers in a network of international institutions. He was especially instrumental in establishing the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Relief and Rehabilitation Agency. He still worked twelve hours a day to promote these and other international institutions, influencing the post-war international environment more than almost any other statesman. By the 1950s Mike Pearson was the best known Canadian, both inside and outside his native land. The U.S. Government proposed him to be the first secretary general of the United Nations, but the Soviets, thinking him an American puppet, vetoed the proposal.

Meanwhile his suspicions of Soviet aims increased as he asked himself, Is it possible for the Western democracies to work out a tolerable relationship with a state organized on a police basis, governed by ruthless despots, inhabited by millions of fighting men and with a dynamic communist ideology? These concerns nudged Mike towards America; he declared, Canada must move closer to the United States, the bulwark against Communist domination, to protect itself.

In view of Pearsons pronouncements, it seems strange that in l95l Elizabeth Bentley identified Pearson as a Soviet contact in her testimony before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. She accused him of moving in left-wing circles and of attending functions at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, a sin of which many diplomats were guilty during and after the war. The FBI worked up a file on him which was substantial in size if not in content. Since Mike Pearson was a gregarious person who enjoyed discourse with all kinds of people, he almost certainly talked with leftwingers, among other people, but the Subcommittee failed to prove anything against him and the publicity created by the charges gradually subsided.

When Louis St. Laurent replaced McKenzie King as prime minister, he arranged for Mike to become his minister for external affairs This move necessitated winning a seat in Parliament. St. Laurent found him a safe one, Algoma Fast, and he easily won in the election of 1948. As minister, he pursued with characteristic vigor his aims to make the United Nations an effective organization and to consolidate the Atlantic nations into an alliance. He was a principal actor in writing the North Atlantic Treaty, especially Article 11, which provided for non-military functions of the new organization. Pearson described the signing ceremony in 1949, before NATO had much strength, as follows:

There we signed the North Atlantic Treaty on that pleasant spring day in Washington while the band of the U.S. Marines played soft music, including two selections from Porgy and Bess, I've Got Plenty of Nothing and It Ain't Necessarily So.